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God is at work fighting for all manner of issues, interests, and people groups. At least that’s what you’d conclude listening to people’s assertions on the nightly news. God is on our side, so it is said, and not on the side of others, especially our opponents.

It sounds great, doesn’t it? If God is fighting for us we must be right. We must own the higher ground. And we will win in the end. We’re more righteous than thou and we’re justified in everything that we do.

But I’m not so sure this is a biblical point of view, which is to say, making such claims is not always good theology.

Today is our 40th Anniversary. Hard to believe Sarah and I have been married for forty years, but here we are.

We’ve been blessed beyond measure, first in the Lord bringing us together in college (We met Freshman year, started dating Sophomore year, broke up Junior year, and got engaged Senior year—a pretty typical sequence for a couple figuring out what “getting serious” means), and second for the years of love, caring, great relationship, and much more.

Like most good marriages involving human beings our “wedded bliss” hasn’t always been blissful, but it’s always been characterized by love, commitment, and respect. In my book, this translates to bliss no matter how the word is defined.

Through this marriage God gave us four children, a daughter and three sons. Now we add a good, hard-working, and committed son-in-law, two wonderful and gracious daughters-in-law, and four noisy grandsons. Add to this in the last two years: two teenage boys from China, adopted first by our friends and then by us as grandsons. Lots of boys and as yet no little girls, but we’ll see what the future holds.

Sarah is Proverbs 31 come to life. As a person and as a wife she is everything a man and specifically I could ever want, need, or imagine. She is kind, caring and compassionate, clearly possesses the gift of hospitality, and would help anyone anywhere anytime if she could. She has been and is an amazing Mother and Grandmother.

For all this I am grateful to her and I praise the Lord. I’d marry her all over again. In fact, I’d marry her every day.

Thank you, Sarah. I love you. I look forward to every minute the Lord gives us past 40 years.

Littering is something I’ve never been able to understand. Does it make any sense to pollute the environment, much less your own property? Yet people do this everyday.

In my view littering is little more than laziness. It’s the unwillingness to expend enough energy to walk to a trash can, to stuff trash into your pocket until you find a waste receptacle, to place trash or garbage on the floor of your vehicle until you stop where disposal can be cared for properly. And so it goes.

It always amazes and incenses me to see people pitch bags of food trash or beer/soda cans out their vehicle window or to drive behind someone as he or she blithely tosses cigarette butts onto the road.

Littering is damaging, destructive, and sometimes dangerous. Litterers are irresponsible, immature, and lazy.

Every four years—or what increasingly is every two years, fast moving toward every year—candidates vying for the office of President of the United States proclaim their religious affiliations and affirmations to the voting public. It’s a US phenomenon and not a bad one, really.

A would-be-President’s religious convictions are interesting to know. As free-society voters we probably ought to know what a candidate believes about religious matters because in some way, small or large, these beliefs help define his or her character, personality, and possibly approach to leadership.

Then again, if history is any guide, we might be forgiven for asking whether a duly elected President’s religious views mean much to everyday governance.

Everyone walks a path in life, one that features many forks. Some directions could lead us to better things, others to serious difficulties. Sometimes we can ascertain the possibilities before we make a decision about which fork to take; sometimes we cannot.

Importantly, at times the Lord provides us with clues if not outright clarity about the direction we should take. These clues or clarity come in the form of friends who speak into our lives.

In the Old Testament, Balaam rode his donkey down a path leading the wrong way. The donkey balked, Balaam beat him, and then God did an amazing thing: he gave the donkey speech. The donkey clearly warned Balaam away from destruction, but Balaam did not listen to the donkey in his life.